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Thursday, August 20, 2015

Ti from www.Bookchatter.nethad an awesome Read Along for this novel and I am just SO GLAD I joined in. It took me longer than the planned dates to finish it, but having an organized RAL helped keep me on track! I was curious about this book mainly because I knew there had to be some similarities with the Bioshock video game, but it was also a classic so it was a double reason to read it. Ti kept things fun with twitter, and I met some cool people because we'd talk a little bit as we went through it. Mini-ReviewThis is a short one because I have difficulty reviewing these kinds of important classic books. As just the story, I frickin’ LOVED IT. I enjoyed most of the protagonists, most of them getting better the more they developed. Dagny was a fantastic heroine who just wanted to protect her railroad because she was Nat Taggart reborn. The chapter about the Taggart Tunnel disaster was my favorite. It was so set up, like a room-wide domino chain where every little piece had as much to do with it as each other. The general sequence of events was great because in parts one and two it just getting so much worse that you didn’t know what else could happen, but oh no. IT COULD HAPPEN.

Part Three was not the same, but there was a lovely rescue scene that leveled it out. However, as a literary novel with themes and archetypes and all those other things you talk about in English class... Well that was also pretty great, really. Whilst I don’t buy into 100% of objectivism, I do think a lot of its points are important. I was not able to finish the John Galt speech. Read about half of it, then skimmed the rest. I'd like to reread it the next time I go thorough it, as I won't be left in suspense as to what's going to happen in the story since I know it now. But otherwise, this is a book that should be read by lots of people for the depth of the philosophy, not just the story. But really, the story is fantastic. Srsly. RATING: 5 stars

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Discussion and Comparison to BioshockWARNING! SPOILERS ABOUND SO DON’T READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE BOOK OR PLAYED THE FIRST BIOSHOCK GAME! Or if you don’t mind getting either spoiled a wee bit :]..............................................OK, so I’ll give you my main complaint. Why did Eddie have such a shitty end? I can understand Cherryl, I can see her unfortunate train-wreck coming. Perhaps I was merely more prepared. But though I knew Dagny wouldn’t be able to help him because they'd said goodbye, I figured he’d be OK otherwise. And then Rand just abandons him to an unknown fate!

He stepped to the front of the engine and looked up at the letters TT. Then he collapsed across the rail and lay sobbing at the foot of the engine, with the beam of a motionless headlight above him going off into a limitless night.

Was Rand just showing what happens to the average masses while the looters die and the producers hide? Well it could have been exemplified like so many of the passengers who died in Taggart Tunnel without crushing poor Eddie. He could have joined the disembarking passengers, hell, maybe he could have led them after a bit of soul-searching. The train breaking down could have merely been a parallel of that tree that was hit by lightning when he was little. He would have felt the same betrayal thinking about something grander than himself, but as then, he would have continued onward. I was just so frustrated with that part I had to complain out loud for like 10 minutes after finishing the book. But anyway, regarding Bioshock. Well if you haven’t gotten to play it, the gist of it is that a man called Andrew Ryan, from Russia I think, is a business magnate in the 1940/50s who wants to create an isolated utopia for others like him. He wants to get away from the “parasites” who are government, religion, and pretty much anyone who wants to limit him.

Andrew Ryan: I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.

Sound a bit like John Galt, right? So he establishes Rapture under the sea, which reminds me of this line in the book:

John Galt was a millionaire, a man of inestimable wealth. He was sailing his yacht one night, in the mid-Atlantic, fighting the worst storm ever wreaked upon the world, when he found it. He saw it in the depth, where it had sunk to escape the reach of men. He saw the towers of Atlantis shining on the bottom of the ocean. It was a sight of such kind that when one had seen it, one could no longer wish to look at the rest of the earth. John Galt sank his ship and went down with his entire crew.

But in Rapture, though things are great for a good while, they go bad. Bioshock is a sort of eventuality of what would befall Galt’s Gulch because human nature is what it is. They all produce, some will naturally produce more and some less. Some came with more money, others less. Classes will divide, not just economical, but based on ability as well (is a piece of art worth the same as a handmade piece of furniture? What if one takes five times longer to build?). Combine the fact that they are for the most part, stuck together without able to go somewhere else while the crisis is happening. Then, in Rapture at least, there’s a new scientific discovery of a substance that can grant persons super human powers such as telekinesis, pyrokinesis, etc. It's limited in quantity, and becomes a precious commodity only certain people can afford to obtain. A second faction is created from the lower classes, led by their ‘everyman’, Atlas. Lotsa fighting and destruction, utopia is now destroyed.In the 1960s, your playable character enters this, a guy named Jack who crashed his plane and managed to get down to Rapture. There’s a bunch of story line that follows here via gameplay, with rather a lot more bits inspired by or as an ode to Atlas Shrugged. But the end is the part that resonates strongly with me, mainly when I played it, but now more so after finishing Atlas Shrugged.Jack has no lines throughout the game, and he pretty much does things based off others’ instructions. The substance that makes you powerful is called ADAM, and originally it was implanted in young girls who were dubbed Little Sisters. Later large monstrous creatures called Big Daddies were made to protect them.

During the game, you can choose to harvest ADAM from the Little Sisters (and get stronger), or you can save them (don't get as strong, but later you get good stuff). There are three endings based on if you harvested all the Little Sisters, only some (same ending as previous but with a sadder narration), or saved them instead. If you’re not going to play the game and don’t mind spoiling the exact bits, I would recommend searching for “good ending Bioshock” on YouTube and watching it. My summary now is that Jack gets a happy ending, and it’s a sweet one filled with love (that you learn he really missed out on in his past).Now here’s the part where I connect it back to Eddie. Remember how Eddie and Dagny were talking about their futures while they were kids?

That day, in a clearing in the woods, the once precious companion of his childhood told him what they would do when they grew up. The words were harsh and glowing, like the sunlight. He listened in admiration and in wonder. When he was asked what he would want to do, he answered at once, "Whatever is right," and added "You ought to do something great...I mean the two of us together." "What?" she asked. He said "I don't know. That's what we ought to find out. Not just business and earning a living."... What do you suppose is the best within us?" "I don't know." "We'll have to find out." She did not answer; she was looking away, up the railroad track.

So it seems like Eddie is very wishy-washy, and when he and Dagny say goodbye, he even says:

"It's still Taggart Transcontinental. I'll stand by it. Dagny, wherever you go, you'll always be able to build a railroad. I couldn't. I don't even want to make a new start. Not any more. Not after what I've seen. You should. I can't. Let me do what I can."

So it makes him seem like he can’t do anything without Dagny being there to guide him. But let’s go back to their kid versions. He wants to do “Whatever is right” primarily. The rest is merely added on, likely because he’s a kid and he’s not sure exactly what he must do for his main calling. As the story develops, you see he is an honest, hard-working, and moral man. Imagine if Eddie got up after collapsing on the rails, making the sacrifice that the other producers had to as well (Galt and his motor, Rearden and his metal, Dagny and her railroad). Imagine he either continued to live outside, being with the other average people, or if he managed to arrive at Galt’s Gulch, possibly being rescued by one of them. Regardless of where he would end up, not having Dagny to be his guide, he would fall back on his base plan for adulthood. If someone needed another pair of hands building a house, he would help. If someone was hurting another person, he would stop it. He would arbitrate and assist others in any way possible, not in the wrongful altruistic way of the looters, but to set things back on the path of right, now that the looters have no more power to order about the masses.Jack in Bioshock was ordered around, but (based on how I played) he saved the Little Sisters because that was right. Eddie would also have done so if in the same position, and perhaps Jack’s good ending was a dedication to Eddie himself and all the others like him. Though it’s the geniuses with productive abilities that rule the world, Galt’s Gulch, and Rapture, it’s the average people who act to decide their own fate who will ultimately survive.